but after the trauma of the sandy hook massacre, the urgent call to limit easy access to guns has exposed the american cultural divide over firearms. the president has offered 23 executive actions to strengthen background checks and better address mental hent and called for armed officers in schools that want them. but it's fraught with danger for the president. there are 20 democratic senate seats up for grabs in 2014, including in the gun-friendly states of arkansas, alaska, iowa, colorado and south dakota, which suggests any gun control measuresville to be a compromise. >> everyone's trying to divert from the core issue. there is a huge consensus in the country, including a vast majority of valentine republicans that things like assault weapons, high-capacity magazine, universal background check, making progress on mental health -- these are things we should and can do to help reduce gun violence. >> this is something we can do something about -- mental health, information sharing, background checks and other things as well, but it has to be a plan that could work or the president won'